Rise From the Humble

"You guys go and have a rest. I will spend the night in the study today. Don't worry, I won't stay up too long."

Zhu Ping'an coaxed Li Shu and others to go back to rest. He stayed alone in the study and read the reports from various places over and over again.

"Alas" Zhu Pingan sighed with deep guilt and self-blame when he saw so many civilian casualties.

As the governor of Zhejiang, tens of thousands of people in the territory were massacred by Japanese pirates. As a governor, he could not absolve himself of the blame.

Even though he had just taken office less than a week ago.

Japanese pirates!

How to solve this biggest disaster in Zhejiang and even Jiangnan? !

The guard station is useless. Although Xiangyong is stronger than the guard station, it is not a regular army after all. It cannot guarantee food, payment, weapons, and training. Facing the Japanese pirates, it is far from an opponent. It just struggles a few more times than the guard station.

In fact, the imperial court also knew that the guard post was unavailable, otherwise why would it have allowed Zhang Jing to mobilize troops from Guangxi all the way?

In Zhu Pingan's view, wolf soldiers are not a good strategy to wipe out Japanese pirates. Historically, Japanese pirates were not wiped out by wolf soldiers.

To exterminate the Japanese pirates, we can only recruit troops and train a new army.

When recruiting soldiers, food and salary are the first issues that need to be solved.

The guard system created by Emperor Hongwu indeed did not cost much money from the court. The guards stationed their own fields and used them as military rations and wages. Most people farm, and a small number of people farm, which basically covers their food and salary. Pick up the hoe to grow food, put down the hoe to fight.

This is also what Emperor Hongwu is most proud of. I raise millions of soldiers without costing the people a grain of rice.

However, now that the guardhouse has rotted away, even though you do not consume much money from the court, you are of little use.

Recruiting soldiers requires food and salary, and the food and salary must be allocated by the court.

However, now the imperial court is too poor. The food and salary in Beizhen has made the court tighten its belt again and again. The food and salary needed to recruit soldiers in Jiangnan will never be less than that in Beizhen. How can the court afford it? !

If the imperial court bears the burden, it can only pass the responsibility on to the common people. How to pass it on? ! How simple, just increase taxes on the people.

As much as there is a shortage, we will increase taxes on the people. This year, we will add 3.5 cents per acre of land, and next year we will add 3.5 cents.

The more soldiers are recruited, the heavier the taxes on the people will be.

Finally, the people were taxed too heavily and could no longer survive, so they had no choice but to make food.

This has become a paradox of the Ming Dynasty: there is a war, the defense is unbearable, soldiers are recruited, the people have to raise taxes, and the people cannot survive, the people revolt, and there is a need to fight again, and the soldiers have to be recruited, and the people have to be taxed again. If taxes are imposed, the people will no longer be able to survive, and the people will revolt again. It has become an endless cycle with no solution.

Once the Ming Dynasty enters this cycle of death, it will inevitably enter a nightmare of peasant uprisings.

Then the Ming Dynasty is not far away from destruction.

Even, from a certain perspective, it can be said that the recruitment system was the first straw that broke the Ming Dynasty.

Historically, during the Three Great Expeditions of Wanli, recruiting soldiers was already the main force of the Ming army, and food and salary expenditures accounted for half of the total annual taxes of the Ming Dynasty at that time.

With such a huge expenditure on food and salary, how much money does the imperial court have left to build weapons, pay salaries to officials, build rivers, provide relief to the people, and develop the economy? !

The peasant uprising alone had seriously injured the Ming Dynasty. When the powerful enemies in the black mountains and white waters launched a charge against the empire, the empire's demise became inevitable.

From this point of view, it is not without reason and basis to say that the recruitment system was the first straw that broke the Ming Dynasty.

However, the Japanese invasion in Jiangnan is so serious now that it is impossible not to recruit troops.

What should I do?

How to recruit soldiers without increasing the burden of food and salary on the court.

Zhu Ping'an frowned and pondered for a long time, but he couldn't think of an answer that would best both worlds.

"How should we do this?" Zhu Pingan said to himself, and wrote the three words "guard station", "recruitment" and "food and salary" on the rice paper. He looked at these three words over and over again and pondered. stand up.

again and again

again and again

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed through Zhu Pingan's mind. Zhu Pingan quickly took a pen and wrote it down on rice paper, and drew a line on the words "recruiting soldiers" and "guard station" to connect them.

Since the guard station is unfit and must recruit soldiers, why not reduce the number of military households in the guard station accordingly according to the number of soldiers recruited? Anyway, the guard station is now unusable, and convert them from military households into ordinary people, and convert part of the farmland into Ordinary farmland, let these military households be converted into civilian households to cultivate these lands, and the taxes paid will make up for the food and salary for recruiting soldiers.

Although under the current guard system, military households also have to pay for grain, and the proportion is even as much as half, but due to the corruption of the guard house, most of the grain paid by military households goes into the pockets of the officers, and the military households have become the property of the guard officers. slave.

It would be better for the imperial court to issue an order to directly convert the corresponding military households into civilian households, otherwise they would be exploited by the guards officers.

As for how many soldiers can be converted into civilians by recruiting soldiers?

Of course, the smaller the ratio between the two, the lighter the burden on the common people; according to ancient productivity estimates, it takes about twenty common people to support one soldier. With this ratio, the common people will not rise up.

In other words, to recruit one soldier, the guard station can convert twenty military households into ordinary civilian households, and convert the corresponding military villages into civilian fields, and use their taxes and miscellaneous labor to support the recruited soldiers, so as to reduce the financial pressure on the court and at the same time also Reduce the tax pressure on ordinary people.

It is not to abolish the guard station system, but to combine the guard station and recruiting soldiers, and adjust the proportion and structure of the two.

The more Zhu Pingan thought about it, the more he realized that this idea was worthy of research.

However, the Ming Dynasty's garrison system stipulated that if a military household wanted to be converted into a civilian household, it must be specially granted by the emperor.

How to obtain the emperor's special grant?

During the Xuande period, the Ming Dynasty promulgated the "Military and Political Regulations", which stipulated that "there is only one person under the military household, who is a student, and is sent to the Ministry of War to apply for the examination of the Hanlin Academy. If there is a result, he will be released from the army as usual. If there is no result, he will still be sent to the army."

Zhu Ping'an did not have the power to convert a military household into a civilian household.

So Zhu Ping'an spread a new piece of rice paper and wrote his thoughts in detail on the rice paper.

"I am afraid that my immature views on recruiting soldiers, please forgive me, Your Majesty."

Finally, Zhu Ping'an added a sentence at the end, saying that he would recruit 8,000 soldiers to wipe out the Japanese pirates in Zhejiang.

After checking that it was correct, Zhu Ping'an copied it on a secret letter, sealed it, and handed it to Liu Daqiang, asking him to bring people to deliver it to Xiyuan.

Calculating the time, Liu Mu and others were also on their way back.

The next day, just as Liu Daqiang and his men set out, Zhu Ping'an issued an official document in the name of the Governor of Zhejiang, ordering Liu Dadao to go to Yiwu again to recruit 8,000 soldiers, no, to recruit young and strong men, and ordered Jinhua Prefecture to cooperate.

These 8,000 people were not all recruited in Yiwu. Dongyang County, Yongkang County, and Wuyi County adjacent to Yiwu County were all recruited. If all the soldiers were recruited in Yiwu, recruiting so many people would have a huge impact on the people's livelihood in Yiwu.

Of course, this was not Zhu Ping'an's decision to act first and then report.

Zhu Ping'an's nominal purpose this time was not to recruit soldiers, but to recruit young and strong men, and then turn them into soldiers after the order came down.

It was just to do the work in advance.

Emperor Jiajing might not necessarily agree to the suggestion of combining recruitment with garrisons, adjusting the ratio, and turning military households into civilian households, but he would definitely agree to recruit soldiers.